In recent years, in the field of medical care and diagnosis or in the field of research in molecular and cellular biology, methods and apparatuses are being required for measuring and observing analysis, functional evaluation or interactive analysis for proteins, DNAs(deoxyribo nucleic acids) or cells, more quantitatively, with good repeatability and quickly. As one field of such techniques, various techniques are proposed for fabricating a soft material array on a substrate such as a glass on a scale of micrometers to nanometers. The “soft materials” may be biological materials or non-biological materials. The “soft materials” widely mean macromolecules in which small molecules are connected (or collected) in various forms, gel, gum, colloid, micelle, liquid crystal, and various biological macromolecules (nucleic acids such as DNAs and RNAs, proteins, carbohydrates, glycoproteins, and the like).
One of the techniques, a method is gathering attention for fabricating a microarray of a soft material by patterning a poly(para-xylylene) resin to produce a stencil. In the non-patent document 1, a method is disclosed for fabricating a microarray of a soft material on a substrate (so-called poly(para-xylylene) resin lift-off method), wherein the method includes: forming a micro pattern in a poly(para-xylylene) resin that is vacuum-deposited on a substrate to produce a stencil; pouring a soft material onto the stencil; and after that, peeling the poly(para-xylylene) resin from the substrate to fabricate the microarray. However, although the non-patent document 1 discloses a technique for forming one kind of soft material into a microarray with versatility and with scalability, the non-patent document 1 does not disclose a technique for making arrays on the same substrate using a plurality of different kinds of soft materials.
On the other hand, several techniques that use the poly(para-xylylene) resin are known for forming plural kinds of soft materials into a microarray on a substrate.
For example, the non-patent document 2 discloses a technique that includes: forming a micro pattern in a poly(para-xylylene) resin that is vacuum-deposited on a substrate to produce a stencil; discharging plural kinds of soft materials on the stencil using an inkjet printing scheme; peeling off the poly(para-xylylene) resin from the substrate so as to fabricate a microarray of plural kinds of soft materials on the same substrate. However, this technique has a problem in that, not only a high-performance spotter that can discharge soft materials becomes necessary as an additional special apparatus, but also spot intervals depend on the performance of the spotter. That is, there is a problem in that spot intervals for forming an array from different kinds of soft materials are limited in order to avoid contamination (unintentional mixture) among the different kinds of soft materials, depending on the performance of the spotter.
Also, the non-patent document 3 discloses a technique that includes: forming a micro pattern in two layers of poly(para-xylylene) resin that are vacuum-deposited on a substrate to produce a stencil; peeling off the two layers of the poly(para-xylylene) resin sequentially from the substrate after pouring soft materials onto the stencil so as to fabricate a microarray of plural kinds of soft materials on the same substrate. However, in this technique, there is a problem in that a possibility that contamination may occur among different kinds of soft materials cannot be excluded.
Further, the non-patent document 4 discloses a technique that includes: forming a micro pattern in one layer of poly(para-xylylene) resin that is vacuum-deposited on a substrate to produce a stencil; forming a plurality of micro flow channels on the stencil; peeling off the poly(para-xylylene) resin from the substrate after injecting different kinds of soft materials into each flow channel so as to form a microarray of plural kinds of soft materials on the same substrate. In this technique, although the possibility of occurrence of contamination is small, since a micro flow channel is connected to each spot of the microarray, there is a problem in that the spot interval for forming the array from the different kinds of soft materials cannot become a desirable size and that it is difficult to fabricate an array of a large area.